We are so amazingly different.
Our differences are one more way that we can see the handiwork of God in creation. If we all happened to evolve by chance somehow over millions of years then what is the likelihood that we would have evolved to have such a variety of different personalities and to have such different likes and dislikes? How could that have come by chance?
Our differences haven’t evolved. They were created by a loving God who loved us too much to replicate mindless robots who would be exactly alike. So we have those opposites – from the very beginning: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, Moses and Aaron (and Miriam), Ahab and Jezebel, Paul and Barnabas. The list is as long as there are people. We are different.
We differ in so many ways. We have different complexions, different political views, different hair, different hobbies, different ways of talking, different laughs, different ways we spend our money. Every area of human personality is built upon the fact that we have a freedom to choose how we will live and what we will do. This becomes especially important when we come to how we respond to God.
Some deny there is a God. Others believe in Him but won’t surrender their lives to Him. Still others believe that there is a God and they (we) have given Him their (our) lives (such as they are). There is also a group that claims to believe in God but lives as if there were no God – practical atheists.
The point is that God made us with a legitimate choice. You are free to choose chocolate or vanilla and you are free to choose to worship God or curse God. Yet your freedom has its limits. Our choices are limited by the laws of nature and of man and more importantly by the laws of God.
Of even greater gravity is that our choices bring consequences. If I choose to sleep in a tree I may well wake up with a crick in my neck or I might wake up with a broken arm from a bad fall. I hate it when that happens.
When I deny the reality of my Maker, the Lord God of heaven and earth, I will face the consequence of that decision. I must. If there truly is a God and He did not hold you and me accountable for our decisions then what kind of God would He be?
God has given each of us a place and a role on this planet. He has numbered out our days and put us in the place He wants us to be and He asks one thing of us. He asks us to believe in Him. Now, it isn’t just a nod of the head, intellectual kind of belief that He is asking. He is asking for us to believe from our hearts that He is God and He is good and He is loving and He is Jesus. He died on the cross for our sins and today He calls us and invites to turn from our sin and turn to Him so that we can be forgiven.
Those differences? They have been smeared all over the map of human history because of sin. We are created in the image of God but that image has been marred and scarred and defaced by sin. Satan doesn’t create anything. He can’t. All he can do is to mock God’s creation by perverting the original perfect design of God. We see it in sex, marriage, food, sanctity of life, gender and a dozen other areas every day.
I want to encourage you to embrace God’s plan and His design for your life. It is amazing when He begins to smooth out the wrinkles and take away the bumps and show us His purpose for our life. I am praying for you. I pray that God will use your distinct personality and even your likes and dislikes to bring Him glory. That is what we’re made for.
Your Pastor,
Bro. Tim Hobbs
“So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me His prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God. He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:8–10, HCSB)